friends, contribute to make this parting scene the most pathetic imaginable. Through the whole of this affecting interview Camoens seems not to have lost sight of Apollonius. But, lest it should be said, that a similarity of situations naturally produces a similarity of sentiments; and that we ought not to interpret a resemblance like this, which might be casual only, to be the effect of studied imitation; another passage may be selected from the Lusiad, which is universally admired for its genuine sublimity, and is affirmed to be the happiest effort of unassisted genius. "The apparition, which in the night hovers athwart the Cape of Good Hope, is the grandest fiction in human composition; the invention his own!" See the dissertation prefixed to Mr. Mickle's translation of the Lusiad.
There is a passage in the third book of Apollonius, to which the description of the apparition at the Cape bears a striking resemblance; I mean, the appearance of the ghost of Sthenelus, standing on his tomb, and surveying the Argonauts as they sail beside him. The description of Camoens is indeed heightened by many additional circumstances, and enriched with a profusion of the boldest images. The colouring is his own; but the first design and outlines of the piece appear to be taken from our poet.
But it is time to quit the imitators of Apollonius, and to give some account of his translators.
